More often than not, hiding behind the paywalls of many fitness apps is premium content such as virtual fitness classes led by celebrity trainers that require additional spending in order to access. Shred, the digital fitness app, goes against the grain by offering a constantly growing library of high-quality workouts within its subscription and provides the opportunity to make your workouts social by including your friends. Users can select the perfect workout by providing their personal preferences such as workout style (basic, classic, athlete, lean-X, cross shred, tone, or bulk), the duration of time available for a workout (30-75 minutes), or workouts designed by body weight. Since the company’s founding in 2018, more than 3M workouts and 76M exercises have been completed on the platform.
LA TechWatch caught up with CEO Adam Weinstein to learn more about the company’s experience growing during COVID, future plans to roll out new products including video-based social workouts, and Shred’s recent funding round.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We recently raised just over $4M in a Seed round from a group of angels.
Tell us about the product or service Shred offers
Shred was built to be the best way to work out with friends using dynamic, personalized training programs. You and your friends can exercise together from the comfort of your home or gym – all with step-by-step coaching & tracking, and fun motivation from a hardworking global community.
What inspired the start of Shred?
Shred was started when a couple of the co-founders, Casey and Charlie had a transformational experience while workout out together. Interestingly, the founding team and executive team have all been friends for years!
How is Shred different?
Shred allows individuals to experience the social motivation of getting fit with others. Prior to starting Shred, we saw numerous fitness apps that offered very limited content on the other side of a paywall and that bothered us….a lot. So we decided to create an ever-expanding repository of high-quality workouts that are accessible to everyone.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
Shred is designed to appeal to everyone from the hardcore gym rat looking for punishment to the newcomer interested in light workouts.
What’s your business model?
We’re a subscription-based service and charge $99.99 per year.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
COVID-19 has driven significant interest in our product as consumers reshape their fitness routines as gyms around the globe remain closed. Thankfully, Shred is as useful at home as it is in the gym, no matter what equipment you have at your disposal. Not unexpectedly, the number of home workouts per user has more than doubled since March.
What was the funding process like?
As many of us come from prior venture-backed companies (Freecause, Bright, Cursor, Bird, etc.), we were fortunate in our access to investors. While there was no free pass, our vision for a global fitness community resonated particularly well and made the process go quickly.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Fitness is a crowded space and while the market is large, it can be hard to stand out. Articulating our go-to-market and how our product differentiates took some time to pin down, but it came together after a few iterations.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Shred has grown a loyal and motivated global user base. We’ve listened to their feedback and built numerous exciting features aimed at helping people come together and get fit while doing it! Over the next few months, you’ll see much of that come to life.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Finding product-market fit is a dance. You’ll know when you get there, but you just can’t stop moving until you do. That said, if you listen to your customers and move quickly, you’ll not only add revenue but become more attractive to investors in the process.
Finding product-market fit is a dance. You’ll know when you get there, but you just can’t stop moving until you do.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Over the next few months, we’ll be launching a whole new side to the product, expanding both our community and product offering. While you’ll continue to see more new exercises, routines, and beyond, we’re also excited to announce a brand new video-streaming offering.
What’s your favorite outdoor activity in LA?
As a runner, nothing beats the trails in the Malibu hills or a run along the beach in Santa Monica. That said, if you ask around the office, you might get a wide variety of answers.
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